Incline Lunatic Dawn - Book of Futures English Translation Project COMPLETED! - CURRENT VERSION 0.98b

[MrRichard999]

Its a windows game. DosBOX wont work with it.

 

[Jinn]

I think I remembered now how I got the disk working on this one for those having issues. I'm pretty sure in addition to running the exe as administrator I right clicked the file, went into properties and ran it in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 3. I think it started up just fine after that. Let me know if that works for you guys. I'm running Windows 7 by the way.

 

[mercyRPG]

I think I remembered now how I got the disk working on this one for those having issues. I'm pretty sure in addition to running the exe as administrator I right clicked the file, went into properties and ran it in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 3. I think it started up just fine after that. Let me know if that works for you guys. I'm running Windows 7 by the way.

Good to know. Win 7 too. Retrying then. My bad. Its a WINDOWS game.. Could install it easily, once clicking OK and letting it settle down on the C: drive.

Pros:
+ Lots of deep RPG features, chinese cultural influences, great characters and NPC AI.
+ nicey land graphics
+ many many features
+ good dungeon walking mechanics with the mouse

Cons:
- Only for hardcore people
- Horrible combat. Slow, tiny characters, minimalistic animations.
- Disturbing WINDOWS "GUI" consisting of plain gray operating system windows and buttons.

Result: uninstall
Avoid.

 

[overtenemy]

I think I remembered now how I got the disk working on this one for those having issues. I'm pretty sure in addition to running the exe as administrator I right clicked the file, went into properties and ran it in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 3. I think it started up just fine after that. Let me know if that works for you guys. I'm running Windows 7 by the way.

Good to know. Win 7 too. Retrying then. My bad. Its a WINDOWS game.. Could install it easily, once clicking OK and letting it settle down on the C: drive.

Pros:
+ Lots of deep RPG features, chinese cultural influences, great characters and NPC AI.
+ nicey land graphics
+ many many features
+ good dungeon walking mechanics with the mouse

Cons:
- Only for hardcore people
- Horrible combat. Slow, tiny characters, minimalistic animations.
- Disturbing WINDOWS "GUI" consisting of plain gray operating system windows and buttons.

Result: uninstall
Avoid.

Could you be more specific how you managed to get it working? I'm not having any luck. I've now tried burning the CD and have begun to get "The specific parameter is out of range for the specific command." Frustrating. Running Windows 95 in Dosbox didn't work either. May try doing a Win 98 virtual machine and report back if all else fails.

 

[felipepepe]

May try doing a Win 98 virtual machine and report back if all else fails.

Tried that already, with a burned CD and changing the driver letters... I think it's more of a crack issue :/

 

[The Fish]

That's strange. All I had to do was burn a cd, it works fine on windows 7.

 

[overtenemy]

May try doing a Win 98 virtual machine and report back if all else fails.

Tried that already, with a burned CD and changing the driver letters... I think it's more of a crack issue :/

I have achieved victory. There's something goofy going on I think with the drive emulation/the burning of the CD. I noticed that whenever I mounted it, the autorun never worked and the setup didn't come up. I had to run the setup.exe manually. I thought this was odd. In any event, after trying various setups with various computers, this finally worked for me:

VMWare Win98SE. Daemon Tools Lite with alcohol images (mdf/mds) mounted and then THAT mounted onto the virtual CD drive on the Win 98 machine. Finally, the autorun worked and the game recognizes the CD. Interestingly, it did not work, even in the virtual machine, from an iso that I had made from the mdf to make things easier.

In any event, I'm not an expert in these matters but I strongly suspect it has to do with the virtual drives you're using and whether or not they're properly emulating something or another. Using Alcohol or maybe Daemon Tools proper (or an older verison of Daemon Tools) may yield results if you fiddle with the emulation settings. I recall having to do so when pirating things back when. I can't be of too much more help, considering I haven't done this crap in so long I had actually forgotten I had Daemon Tools installed at all.

In any event, above steps for great success, assuming all else fails.

Edit: I also failed burning the iso and mdf across several CD drives and computers. This may be a result of again the fact that when I burned the alcohol image to the CD it was done using a drive that was emulated poorly, resulting in a CD covered in AIDS. I'm sure there's a way to do it but if you already have a virtual machine running I'm guessing how I outlined above is the easiest.

If you don't have a virtual machine running, go make one. New games suck anyway.

EDIT Edit: May have found the issue. The virtual drives I was using weren't SCSI. If someone found success burning the CD it may be because the virtual drive wasn't SCSI but their physical one is. Why should this matter? I don't know, but after installing the SCSI drivers for Daemon Tools and setting one up for drive D it works with a mounted image on Windows 7, no Virtual Machine. Others' input and experience would be appreciated.

 

[felipepepe]

Hurray, it worked! it seems the problem was indeed either changing the CD from MDS to ISO or using CloneDrive instead of Daemon...

It didn't work on Windows 10, but ran perfectly on my Win XP VM:

Cool to see this, and I'm grateful for the translation, but the game is kinda disappointing... the dungeons are REALLY dull. :/

 

[mondblut]

EDIT Edit: May have found the issue. The virtual drives I was using weren't SCSI. If someone found success burning the CD it may be because the virtual drive wasn't SCSI but their physical one is. Why should this matter? I don't know, but after installing the SCSI drivers for Daemon Tools and setting one up for drive D it works with a mounted image on Windows 7, no Virtual Machine. Others' input and experience would be appreciated.

Indeed. I mounted the mdf as a SCSI drive in DT (replacing physical drive on B if matters), and it no longer fails to see the cd.

 

[mondblut]

Meh. So much potential, so horrid implementation. Gets the prize for the most obtuse and inconvenient interface ever in the history of gaming. Battles remind of PORROMD or Wizardry 8 without speedfix, except no movement is involved. Did its makers actually try to play it? Did it ever occur to them something is off?

 

[Nazrim Eldrak]

1. Tried it with PowerIs0 - didn´t work
2. Tried it with DaemonT and a SCSI virtual drive - didn´t work
3. Burnt the mdf-image with imgburn(It does not officially support *.mdx image files, but does burn it if you select "All files") - ERROR:"The specific parameter is out of range for the specific command."
4. While searching for a solution I found an interesting site: http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/WinXP/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/2005-07/msg09531.html
RESUME:

Spoiler

I give up

 

[Indranys]

2. Tried it with DaemonT and a SCSI virtual drive - didn´t work

Dude, mount the image to the physical drive, like the drive E or something. The virtual one won't work for this game.
Keep it SCSI and it works for me.
Played it for a day and indeed, the game is a wasted potential.
Someone should copy the idea and improve it, it could be the next great JRPG format IMO.

 

[overtenemy]

1. Tried it with PowerIs0 - didn´t work
2. Tried it with DaemonT and a SCSI virtual drive - didn´t work
3. Burnt the mdf-image with imgburn(It does not officially support *.mdx image files, but does burn it if you select "All files") - ERROR:"The specific parameter is out of range for the specific command."
4. While searching for a solution I found an interesting site: http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/WinXP/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/2005-07/msg09531.html
RESUME:

Spoiler

I give up

Try the Win 98 virtual machine thing. VMWare lets you mount a CD from a drive to the virtual drive emulated in the machine. So mount with DT, boot up VMWare, mount a virtual drive onto yo virtual drive so you can emulate while you emulate and it'll probably work.

As for the game itself I think it's maybe getting panned a little too hard. The dungeons are indeed boring, but the game isn't too slow a la Wiz 8 - there's a speed option that, when cranked, actually makes it go quite quickly. The game is more like an RPG Pirates! in which your goal is simply to acquire power and wealth then retire. As a sum of its parts I am definitely enjoying it but since the dungeons are indeed shit (as I suppose it must be with the game spreading itself so thin on features) it makes me more interested in Lunatic Dawn II than anything else. That game looks pretty sweet. Pray to the Emperor for successful translation.

Things that have happened to me so far:
first job I took was to assassinate some dude. The game appears to randomly generate adventurers, who have stats, levels, may be spoken to and hired, will give you jobs, and will become the target of jobs. This poor guy was the target of a job. He had some great loot to get me started, since my dude is more of an intelligence character and spells are cast from items. Got me a bounty on my head - had to flee guards and get out of the country.

Took a smuggling job, which is just to get an item to another town. As soon as I took it, another job came up at the inn - to kill ME before I could successfully transport the item. It was alot of money and I was tempted to take it and Jew it somehow, but couldn't be bothered.

If you die your companions may bring you back, but there appears to be a limit. I've died twice, the next death made me dead for real. This game is pretty clearly supposed to be run Ironman. Again, think Pirates!

Evil thief bitch professes to want my dick but occasionally actually attacks me in combat, but then says nothing about it afterwards. Anyone know what's up with that? Also, can you get high dex characters to steal items in your stead?

Will edit if I remember any other funny shit.

 

[Nazrim Eldrak]

Try the Win 98 virtual machine thing.

That is something I want to try, but not at the moment. I have only 9GB hard drive space and I am working on some important stuff that will take a year until they are done.

mount the image to the physical drive, like the drive E or something. The virtual one won't work for this game.
Keep it SCSI and it works for me.

That is something I do not know how to do (E.g. what tools do I need)

 

[Helly]

The game is more like an RPG Pirates! in which your goal is simply to acquire power and wealth then retire.

There actually is an ending, although I have yet to reach it myself. I should know, I translated it

 

[Indranys]

That is something I do not know how to do (E.g. what tools do I need)

Sorry man I forgot to reply...
Using only daemon tools is enough, I did not need any virtual machine or other things.
In the daemon mounting disc UI, there should be an option to choose the physical drive to mount the disk image, instead of the virtual one.
It is in the same UI with the SCSI option man.
P.S. I used the newest version of daemon, so I don't know if the older versions have that feature...
Sorry I can't get into the step by step explanation right now, but for the next few days, just ask and I'll try to explain each step to run the game.

 

[Nazrim Eldrak]

Thanks for the offer - I appreciate it - please explain the steps. Behind the spoiler button there is a DT-UI picture that should serve as a starting point.

Spoiler

 

[MrRichard999]

Has anyone come to the option of annihilating the planet yet? :D

 

[OracleX]

MrRichard999 any progress on part iv or did you leave it for other projects?

 

[MrRichard999]

Havent had time for it with class work going on, summer is coming though

 

[paintmyproblem]

In case anyone else decides to give this game a try, here is the truth about what is going on with getting it to run:

The game uses "bad sector" copy protection in the original disk - it checks for "bad sectors" when the game starts.

There is an mdf image of the game floating around out there. mdf as a format can store the data for these "bad sectors", but only if you use a mounting program that can handle the granularity of the program. DT (the free lite version works) is one of these.

If you convert the disk to an iso, you will lose the bad sectors. You'll still be able to install the game, but not run it - bullshit, I know...

The game looks for the disk on D:, and only D: - you may need to move drive letters around. Also, use DT and choose a SCSI drive - if the autoplay window doesn't come up, you haven't done it right.

The only thing the game uses the disc for (besides copy protection) is playing music. I've made a no-cd crack on top of the english translation if anyone wants to play without all the bullshit. It won't play the music, but you can play the music yourself from a couple of avi files in the avi directory of the disc image if you want. The game selects tracks for certain events/etc. I think the music is kinda nice.

Just ask if you want the no-cd executable.

 

[paintmyproblem]

Okay, we've got a taker! So, I'll just post a g.drive link for everyone to enjoy:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y-WujHZxEAcfG66qlMgXOqcNf3jOAbZD

Here's the deal - install the program and follow the english translation patch instructions per normal. Drop this executable into the same folder the ldbof-english.exe is and run it.
When you start the game, the program will complain about the cd in some manner. Just hit "cancel" on that and it'll go away. You may get one more as the game tries to play music the first time, cancel that too.

Now you can go up to file->new game or whatever you want to do, as the cd check has been bypassed. Please let me know if there are issues and I'll try to support!

Also, discuss the game if you are into it. I think it's an interesting game, especially if you want a jrpg fantasy version of something like koei's uncharted waters...